Study says most follow in fathers' financial
footsteps

If your ancestors were rich -- or poor
-- you're likely the same, writes Misty Harris,
although that tendency may be less pronounced
in Canada than in the United States and Europe.

The Ottawa Citizen, Ottawa Ontario, April 22, 2006

In what sounds like the life philosophy of
Paris Hilton, an international economics study
has found "it's not what you know but ... how
rich your father is that matters."

The report, presented this week at the annual
meeting of Britain's Royal Economic Society,
identifies a strong relationship between the
earnings of parents and their children. In all
regions studied -- Britain, the U.S., Norway,
Sweden, Denmark and Finland -- "inherited" economic
status was most pronounced for those born into
very poor or very affluent families. More ..

What the government of Manitoba is doing to end child poverty

Letter to the president of the Canadian Children's Rights Council from:

The Honourable Christine Melnick, M.L.A.

Minister Family Services and Housing

Government of Manitoba

Room 357 Leg. Bldg.

450 Broadway

Winnipeg, MB R3C 0V8

January 11, 2005

Dear Sir:

Thank you for your recent letter in which you
have shared your views regarding child poverty
in Canada.

I share your concerns regarding child poverty.
The Manitoba government believes that a long-term,
comprehensive strategy to eliminate child poverty
is required from all levels of governments.
More ..

More and more teens are becoming depressed. The numbers of young people
suffering from depression in the last 10 years has risen worryingly, an
expert says.

BBC, UK, August 3, 2004

Government statistics suggest one in eight adolescents now has depression.

Unless doctors recognise the problem, more could slip through the net,
says Professor Tim Kendall of the National Collaborating Centre for Mental
Health.

Guidelines on treating childhood depression will be published next year.
Professor Kendall says a lot more needs to be done to treat the illness.
More..

Woman convicted of killing 3 kids after custody
battle

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, USA, August 26, 2008

HELSINKI, Finland - A court in Finland has convicted a woman of murdering
her three young children and has given her a life sentence.

The Espoo District Court says Thai-born Yu-Hsiu Fu was found guilty of
strangling her 8-year-old twin daughters and 1-year-old son in her home.

She tried to kill herself afterward.

The verdict on Tuesday says the 41-year-old woman was found to be of
sound mind at the time of the murders.

Court papers show the murders were preceded by a bitter custody battle
with her Finnish husband who was living separately from her at the time
of the murders.

A life sentence in Finland mean convicts usually serve at least 11 years
in prison.

Child Poverty in Canada

Canada's largest daily newspaper

Rich Nation, Poor Children

The Toronto Star, by Vipal Jain, November 20th, 2009 ( Canada's Child Day
and the 20th anniversary of the United Nations
Convention on the Rights of the Child)

One in nine Canadian children, more than a million,
live below the poverty line according to the 2008 Report
Card on Child and Family Poverty in Canada. Although
this should be a concern every day, it is especially a
concern on Nov. 20, National Child Day and the 20th
anniversary of the United Nations Convention on the
Rights of a Child (UNCRC).

Fifteen years ago, the Canadian government resolved
to eliminate child poverty by the year 2000. Nine years
later, nothing has changed. The rate of child poverty
has remained at 12 per cent for two decades now,
according to Statistics Canada.

“For many families, it’s very difficult to get
out of poverty. There isn’t enough money to feed the
children, clothe them properly, or even enough money
to pay for the bus fare or to look for a job,” says
Grant Wilson, President of Canadian Children’s
Rights Council. It’s even harder for new Canadian
children and aboriginal families as they are at a
greater risk of living in poverty, according to the
report.
More..

Global TV

Rich income, poor income gap widens

Global TV National,
Monday, September 04, 2006

Members of the United Steel Workers union march in the
Detroit Labor Day Parade September 4, 2006 in Detroit, Michigan.
(Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)

VANCOUVER -- Our neighbours to the south may have Canadians
to thank when it comes to enjoying a day off in September.

Inspired by Toronto's Annual Worker's Parade in the late
1800s, the American Labour Movement also adopted the first
Monday of September to rally for the rights of workers --
but a century later, the state of the workers may not be
so rosy.

For nine straight years, the U.S. minimum wage rate has
remained unchanged, according to the Ecomonic Policy Institute
(EPI), a Washington-based think tank, while the wages of
the highest earners in America have continued to soar --
to the degree that the U.S. ranks dead last in worker equality
among industrialized nations.
More ..

Child Poverty in Canada

In rich Canada, welfare worsens

Here in Canada, in one of the richest countries of the world,
the very poorest are getting poorer. This is not the result
of some external or unforeseen crisis. It is happening in
the midst of a long-running economic boom and reflects the
deliberate decisions of elected governments presumably supported
by the Canadian public at large to purge the roughly 1.7
million people consigned to welfare from our collective
consciousness.

It is shameful. It is pretty much criminal. And, as the
National Council on Welfare, an advisory body to the federal
government, warned in a report released yesterday, it is
remarkably short-sighted. In particular, it is short-sighted
for those of us in the broader middle classes who assume
wrongly that we could never end up on the dole.

It's a cruel world out there now. Successive governments
have gutted or eliminated much of Canada's vaunted social
safety net. For most workers, employment insurance doesn't
exist. Increasingly, employers prefer part-time or contract
workers who can be fired at will and who are owed neither
benefits nor pensions.

If the economy falters and unemployment spikes as it is
almost sure to do again there is not much between a comfortable
middle-class life and welfare.

So just hope it doesn't happen to you. As the council points
out, for the vast majority of those on welfare, things are
bad and getting worse.

The figures are depressing and distressing. In Ontario,
for example, the incomes of most welfare recipients, after
adjustment for inflation, are lower now than they were 20
years ago.
More ..

Editorial / Opinion

Welfare programs fail the neediest

The Toronto Star, ( Canada's largest daily newspaper
) Aug. 28, 2006

Do you belong to a typical middle-income family of four
in Ontario? Then you took in about $80,000 last year. And
you no doubt had to make some difficult lifestyle choices.
Maybe between investing in a new car or splurging on a vacation.
Or buying a plasma TV or braces for one of the kids.

Now try to imagine what your life would have been like trying
to make ends meet on less than a quarter of your income.
How would you have housed, fed and clothed your family and
provided all the other necessities of life on just $19,302?
That's just half the poverty line.

If it sounds next to impossible, it is.

Yet that is what an Ontario couple with two children living
on welfare receives in benefits. Social assistance in this
province has never been adequate. And it has declined for
13 years, eroded by inflation.
More..

Welfare study shows need for guaranteed income

The Toronto Star, ( Canada's largest daily newspaper
), by HUGH SEGAL, SPECIAL TO THE STAR, Sep. 2, 2006

Canada's on-again, off-again relationship with a guaranteed
annual income (GAI) has made the rounds for many years.
The most renowned recommendation for the GAI came out of
the 1985 report of the Royal Commission on the Economic
Union and Development Prospects for Canada, chaired by Donald
Macdonald, known as the Macdonald Commission.

The report stated unequivocally that a universal income
security program is "the essential building block" for social
security programs in the 21st century. A guaranteed annual
income or basic income is the concept of a floor income
provided on a continual basis varying on family size, age,
and other sources of income.
More..

Where compassion hides its face

I live in Parkdale-High Park, the west-end riding where
a by-election is being fought to replace Gerard Kennedy,
who resigned his seat in the provincial Legislature in May
to run for the federal Liberal leadership.

An earnest young canvasser for New Democratic Party candidate
Cheri DiNovo knocked on my door the other day.

He asked if I was aware there was a by-election going
on. I said I was.

He asked if I had read any of DiNovo's campaign brochures.
I said I had.

He tried to gauge whether I was a NDP supporter. I was
unhelpful.

Finally, he asked whether I had any questions. I thought
about smiling and saying no but couldn't. "Well, yes, as
a matter of fact," I said. "I don't see anything in Ms.
DiNovo's literature about raising social assistance rates.
I'm concerned that politicians at Queen's Park are ignoring
the poorest people in the province."
More ..

Little money for social programs from Finance Minister

Globe and Mail, by RICHARD BLACKWELL, March 23, 2006

Compared to the billions of dollars being spent on subways,
bridges and health care infrastructure, the amount of new
money going to help disadvantaged Ontarians in yesterday's
provincial budget was decidedly modest.

An extra $218-million will be added to spending on children's
and social services in 2006-2007, a 2.2 per cent rise from
the $10.1-billion spent in the previous fiscal year.

The new money includes $33-million for a two per cent rise
in social assistance payments and shelter allowances for
those on welfare meaning a single parent with two children
will get a boost of a little over $5 a week this year.

Families on social assistance will get another boost of
about $8.50 a week, a result of provincial changes that
will trim the amount of money the province claws back from
federal child benefits.
More ..

Campaign 2000

One Million Too Many:

Implementing solutions to Child Poverty in Canada

2004 Report Card on Child Poverty in Canada

Fifteen years ago the House of Commons unanimously resolved
to "seek to achieve the goal of eliminating poverty among
Canadian children by the year 2000." In the midst of a growing
economy more than one million children, or nearly one child
in six, still live in poverty in Canada.

The solutions are well-known. What's lacking is the political
will. It's time to end the social deficit.

15 years on and still the children suffer

More than 1 million children, one in six kids in Canada,
live in poverty. Nearly three times more aboriginal, immigrant
and visible minority children are poorer than the national
average.

As leader of the New Democratic party, Ed Broadbent back
in Ottawa as an NDP MP after a 15-year hiatus moved the
1989 parliamentary motion to end child poverty. A generation
of children has grown up seeing that vow unfulfilled.
More..

Child poverty: setting new goals

EDITORIAL

The Toronto Star, CAROL GOAR, Nov. 24, 2004

Giving up is not an option. But clinging to a faded dream
is not a solution.

So today, on the 15th anniversary of his parliamentary resolution
to end child poverty by 2000, Ed Broadbent will set a new
goal. He will challenge Canadians to reduce the child poverty
rate to 5 per cent within 10 years.

His new target lacks the tidy finality of the one he persuaded
all MPs to endorse on Nov. 24, 1989, shortly before his
retirement as leader of the New Democratic Party. It is
less ambitious, less appealing.

But Broadbent, who returned to active politics this year,
believes it is realistic and achievable. He calls it "a
new agenda for a new time."

The child poverty rate currently stands at 15 per cent.
It was 15.2 per cent when Broadbent issued his clarion call
15 years ago.
More ..

Reading this table

Example: 1,484,000 Canadian children lived in poverty
in 1993, a poverty rate of 21.3%. The child poverty rate
was highest in Manitoba, where 26.1% of all children were
poor. More than half a million poor children (539,000) lived
in Ontario.